


and there is no disaster like love

by violentdarlings



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Insecurity, Masturbation, Missing Scene, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 21:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9460649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: Jamie and Claire as they struggle with their marriage post Wentworth. Early season two ish.





	

She must think he’s asleep, otherwise she’d not dare do it.

Jamie’s well aware the toll the last few months have taken on his Sassenach; she wears frown lines at times that etch deep into her flesh, a perpetual expression of worry written on her lovely brow. It fades, at times; when he manages to kiss her without feeling the gorge rise in his throat, when he touches her belly to feel where the bairn is safe inside, when he can smile at her without pain tugging at him deep in his chest. But Claire is a woman with needs, and even when she fought with him or kept her true feelings deep inside, the bed was always a haven for them. Jamie has never felt so at home as when he’s buried in her to the hilt, her hands clawing at his shoulders, trying to drag him deeper, trying to make them unassailably one. They have never been the kind of married pair to live chaste.

But Jamie hasn’t been able to touch her for months, not like they once had, gasping and ever starving for one another. Ever since Wentworth, Jamie has been chained by the memories of that place, of that dungeon and the depravities that occurred within. He wakes near on to every night, limned with sweat, teeth gritted and a concerned hand on his shoulder that he can barely endure the feel of. His Claire, and the very touch of her hand or the scent of lavender sets his blood to freezing.

He does try, him and his sharp-tongued wife, his healer. It’s not like he can’t get a cockstand, after all; sometimes he’s so hard he could damn near hammer nails, thinking of the wail of her when she peaks, the satisfaction and want intermingled that he feels when he gets her there. And yet in the bed he can hardly stand to touch her; Randall’s voice and face float back to him, as inexorable as his breathing and as impossible to escape.

One night, when he’s pushed her away yet again, burning with self-loathing, Jamie has almost drifted into a miserable half-sleep when he is aware that there is movement nearby. He opens his eyes, peers at Claire’s hunched form, curled away from him. He doesn’t quite comprehend what the tiny, fragile movements she’s making are – Jamie does not understand what she is doing, until her breath hitches in her throat, a gasp as familiar to him as his own scars, if significantly more muted than usual.

Realisation strikes like lightning, and once he’d be unable to bear it, the knowledge of his Sassenach touching her most sweet and secret place, crooking her fingers up inside herself, her thumb rubbing, seeking, and him not with his hands on her –

He can see it, as clearly as if she lay bare and exposed before him. Claire has touched herself in front of him before; reaching down to ease herself closer as she rides him, or sinking her fingers into her sweetness as she takes him down her throat. Just the memory of it has him hardening, his hands itching to touch her. Yet she is so quiet and so still, like she does not want him to know he has stirred her beyond endurance. Like she thinks it a crime, to bring herself off when he cannot manage it, and a sin, to remind him of his inadequacy.

Jamie is used to living with shame, since Wentworth, but this is a new and crueller kind of torment, that his wife must ease her own ache because he is not man enough to manage it. That Randall has taken up residence both in hell and in Jamie’s own head, and that the bastard is not likely to depart either any time soon. That Jamie wants nothing more to sink into Claire and never think again, and that the very thought of it sets off a tremor in his bones and horror clawing at his soul.

Claire is moaning, tiny, heartbreaking noises that strike Jamie all the way to the core. He watches her, the strain in her shoulders, the motion of her hips, like a tide pulling away and bearing back, the rhythm starting to falter. He can tell from long knowledge of her body that she’s close, that she’s trying to draw it out to ride the sensations just a moment longer. Once, he would have rolled her over, pushed her hand away and put his tongue to work, lapping at the seam of her, tasting the salt of her all the way through his body.

Once. Not now.

Claire gasps, and shudders, and spits his name out like it’s both a prayer and a curse – _Jamie_ , _oh God,_ _Jamie_ – and stills, her shaking frame reaching a sort of peace. Jamie knows excruciatingly well the taste of her that must be slicked on her fingertips, the white thighs, the belly just beginning to round with bairn. His hands are better suited to warfare that portraiture, and yet if his hands had the grace God granted the artists of history and fortune, he knows he could draw Claire from memory, every inch of her. She is as seared on his flesh as the marks on his back.

She’s falling asleep. Her breathing is deepening, evening out, losing the erratic stutter of arousal. Jamie knows her heartbeat would be calming in her chest, like a horse battening at the gate but slowly, painstakingly wearing down. He knows she is bare beneath her nightgown, that she would not object if he seized her by the hips, rolled her towards him, and make free with his mouth on her skin. She would wake from her half-sleep, and smile at him, and he’d bed her as enthusiastically as he’d done the first time, and the second, and all the others beside.

But Jamie is not that man anymore.

He turns over, settles in for another sleepless night, ignores the hardness below his waist and the torment in his heart. After all, there’s work to be done in the morning, and it won’t be doing itself.

It makes for a decent distraction.


End file.
